When I sat down to write this one, I started three times and erased each line. I know exactly what I want to say, yet I do not know exactly how to say it. In a desperate move to keep my fingers going, I decided to hell with it all and just started letting my fingers do the walking, so to speak.
And here we are.
This all began with a simple thought: someone needs to really talk about how the economic situation of what should be a middle class actually looks like from the inside. We read news reports and articles from writers who are making six and seven figures on Substack, Medium, or legacy media about the numerical effects of the economy on the middle class. We read countless op-ed pieces debating whether there actually is a middle class anymore. We listen to Bernie and Yang blasting the establishment over how the middle class is being overlooked, but…has anyone from this mythical middle class actually told their story, and if so, where is it?
I am an avid fan of Matt Taibbi, and he has been one of the writers who has written for years about how Washington has overlooked this cultural land of vagabonds living paycheck to paycheck. My issue is that he has risen above that line and entered into an upper economic class that has separated him from the day-to-day toils real middle-class citizens are witnessing as they are caught in a never-ending struggle to make the numbers work. Excess has eluded this class, and the ongoing repetition of the stat that 69% of Americans have less than $1000 in savings doesn’t really do much in terms of addressing the situation, or even offering any solution that may help alleviate the burden.
The reality is that it is not a simple issue to solve. There are dozens of problems that are associated with the decline of the middle class, and there is no magic wand that will solve them. So, in the spirit of being me, I will try to focus on one glaring issue of the decline: the American dream.
We have all been taught in some form or another that in order to make it in this country you work hard, pay your dues, and in the end, you come out of it with a retirement plan that helps you live life in your late 60s. The American dream is just that – getting to a place where you can live a life with minimal economic struggle. The current class that used to be in the “middle” is staring at a future that will not allow such a dream to exist. This arises from several consequences: stagnant wages, cost of living increasing without a rise in income to meet it, and an economic crash and pandemic within 12 years of each other. And so, we are caught chasing just a little more money each day hoping that at the end of the month it will add up to cover just one more bill that we now “have” to have.
In my own personal experience, I live paycheck to paycheck. Most of this comes from two realities in my own life: child support and an annual nine-month employment contract. The way it is supposed to work is that I am paid enough in my nine-month contract that I should be able to save some of that to spread out over twelve months. However, child support, insurance, and retirement pretty much take care of that extra money that is, again, supposed to be for the summer months. Because of this, I adjunct at a local university to try to cover for the summer months. The issue with that is in the fact that getting those classes to make (actually happen) is a gamble that I don’t know the outcome of until right before classes begin. And, as happened this semester, once you lose them it is too late to replace them.
What this whole system I have found myself in has done is created a non-stop paycheck to paycheck fight to make ends meet with uncertainty about how I will survive between June and September. Yes, I can and will work this summer. However, that extra savings helps to cover what a part time seasonal job will not cover. It’s kind of hard to adjust your personal budget when you drop from $30 an hour to $12. And if I don’t have that extra to cover, I lose my home, car, and will barely be able to feed my kids.
So, get a cheaper home and car. And what happens when I do and I can’t afford that? What happens if I am already in a pretty cheap position and am still looking at financial chaos?
There is no answer to any of this. What hurts is that I am not the only one.
We have reached a point where millions of Americans are in similar if not dyer positions in this country. How do we get out of it if the American dream is missing? We can argue over the wealth gap all we want, but the reality is that the argument isn’t putting food on the table. And because of this, we have also created a moderate class that is so disillusioned by the politics of Washington and the rest of the Northeast that we are losing faith in ourselves. Not our country or systems, but ourselves. When you fight so hard to get ahead and end up behind each time, at what point do you break? We have seen suicide rates on the rise each year as more and more people break from the struggle, and there has yet to be a politician that is really strong enough to make the struggle just a little easier so the breaking point isn’t right around the corner always waiting to pounce and ruin us…again.
So, I offer this simple little call: if you want to be in politics, fight to make the struggle easier. Do not talk about fighting for it. Do not posture like you are fighting for it. Fight for it. Hard.
If you’re a part of this class, take solace in the fact that you are not alone. We are out here too, struggling to make something happen so we can finally take a breath when that new bill arrives, and we have it covered already. Life was not meant to be lived as a constant succession of “if I can just make it to…” moments.
Those moments end with a breaking point.